This expert shows you how to get 6 hours of sleep in just 20 minutes

We can all agree we live in a crazy time. We’re constantly online, doing twenty things at once, rushing from one thing to the next. In one day we take in the amount of stimulation that people living 200 years ago would have experienced in their whole lives.

We spend a lot of time stressing about the past or the future, which Tim said causes our nervous systems and then our brains to speed up and stress out. Instead we need to learn to live in the present.

“The ultimate goal is to be in the present consistently because all the cues for a glorious future are right in front of us, they’re not in the future, they’re not in the past, they are right here,” the mediation expert said.

Well, according to Tim, meditation gives the mind a chance to process and relax, meaning that you’ll emerge feeling as if you’ve had a few hours of serious shut eye. He also believes meditation will help to improve “clarity, creativity and energy” allowing us to “become more effective, efficient and productive.” He said because of this once people start meditating they find that they get things done faster and so have more time to do things they enjoy. Where do we sign up?

It turns out Tim’s got an answer to that too, suggesting that people try out a meditation app (such as Calm, Headspace or Smiling Minds) to get a taste. “I talk about learning to meditate like learning to ride a bike, if you can get someone to fit you for the right size bike, hold the back of the bike and give you good instruction anyone can ride a bike,” he said.

“Meditation is exactly the same, if you can get some guidance and whether that is with an app or with a human being just getting some guidance rather than trying to do it all by yourself.”

Make sure you check out the rest of the Healthy-ish podcast - how can we be more mindful every day?. Dr Andrew shares his mindfulness shower tips and we chat about whether quitting social media could help you relax. Plus, how the mum who lost a fortune made it all back again.